A departure from Firing Line's usual format, justified by the fact that, as WFB

puts it, "it is through books that people tend to promulgate their views." Messrs. Buckley and Chancellor are the co-hosts of the first annual American Book Awards, the successor (not uncontroversially--cf. the following show) to the National Book Awards. This show reproduces excerpts from the awards ceremony, with just a short foreword and afterword from Mr. Buckley. One sample, from Theodore White: "I come to present the award for the most unforgiving of all literary arts, the art of autobiography. A young novelist, a young poet, a young raconteur, can hope to do better in his second, third, or fourth time around as he improves his style, but the autobiographer must get it right the first time. He has only one tango with his facts, or she has only one waltz where memory and truth dance to different music. Autobiography permits of no rearranging ... You get it right the first time, or you're a fake forever after."